The food prices have been high over the recent years while volatility has been lower now than in the two recent decades. The variability has been high over the most recent period but with the exception of rice not out of the line with historical experience. There are weak evidence that the food price volatility is increasing but it is too early to say.[1]
SDG 2 End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
One of the targets (2.c) for SDG 2 is "Adopt measures to ensure the proper functioning of food commodity markets and their derivatives and facilitate timely access to market information, including on food reserves, in order to help limit extreme food price volatility."[2]
This is a good measure but the WTO and FTAs have no means to address this, In fact their actions are encouraging speculative trading in food commodity markets by opening the developing countries to global markets and challenging public stock holding operations.[3]
In the figure by Cafiero and Gennari (2015) is shown the causal pathways between different targets in SDG 2.
Figure 1 Cafiero and Gennari (2015)[4] From this figure it is easy to see which connections food price volatility in target 2.c has to the other parts of the SDG 2. In this figure the target 2.c (Transparency of food markets) contains the price volatility problem. It has relations to the following targets:
2.1 Better access to food
2.2 Better nutrition
3.2 End child mortality
3.4 Non-communicable diseases
2.5 Increased small-holder productivity, income and resilience
2.4 Sustainable food production systems
2.5 Genetic diversity
1.1 Extreme poverty
1.3. Social protection
1.5 Resilience of the poor
Causes of food price volatility There are predictable and unpredictable variations, the latter meaning shocks, Shocks in production or demand result in price volatility. The production varies because of yield variations often owing to the weather. Demand varies because of the changes in incomes, prices of substitutes an shifts in tastes. Generally it is supposed that the most important reason for volatility is the weather shocks to agricultural yields. Income shocks and policy shocks which affects the demand also plays an important role.[5] SDG 2 in Finland There is a growing interest in social responsibility among consumers, investors and NGOs just to name few, and now social responsibility is also taken seriously in many companies, for example the Finnish trading sector company Kesko. The company has announced that their actions to achieve the goals on a global scale are:- A fair compensation of work.- Kesko and Fairtrade Finland have signed an agreement which has as an aim to offer a bigger variety of fair trade products to the customers and in this way increase the well being of the Fairtrade farmers. On a local scale the actions are:- Of all the K-food stores 90% donate food to local charity.- The private label K-Menu offers affordable and high quality staple foods.- Ab experimental farm at Hauho does research work for promoting sustainable cultivation methods and to develop local food production.- Participation in different efforts to promote local origin and to increase domestic food production. Kesko Quiz created by Markus Kemppainen with GoConqr
^C. L.Gilbert, C. W.Morgan. (2010) Food price volatility. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
^ Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2016. Report by the Reflection Group on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
^ Spotlight on Sustainable Development 2016. Report by the Reflection Group on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Definition
The food prices have been high over the recent years while volatility has been lower now than in the two recent decades. The variability has been high over the most recent period but with the exception of rice not out of the line with historical experience. There are weak evidence that the food price volatility is increasing but it is too early to say.[1]
SDG 2 End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture
One of the targets (2.c) for SDG 2 is "Adopt measures to ensure the proper functioning of food commodity markets and their derivatives and facilitate timely access to market information, including on food reserves, in order to help limit extreme food price volatility."[2]
This is a good measure but the WTO and FTAs have no means to address this, In fact their actions are encouraging speculative trading in food commodity markets by opening the developing countries to global markets and challenging public stock holding operations.[3]
In the figure by Cafiero and Gennari (2015) is shown the causal pathways between different targets in SDG 2.
Figure 1 Cafiero and Gennari (2015)[4]
From this figure it is easy to see which connections food price volatility in target 2.c has to the other parts of the SDG 2.
In this figure the target 2.c (Transparency of food markets) contains the price volatility problem. It has relations to the following targets:
Causes of food price volatility
There are predictable and unpredictable variations, the latter meaning shocks, Shocks in production or demand result in price volatility. The production varies because of yield variations often owing to the weather. Demand varies because of the changes in incomes, prices of substitutes an shifts in tastes. Generally it is supposed that the most important reason for volatility is the weather shocks to agricultural yields. Income shocks and policy shocks which affects the demand also plays an important role.[5]
SDG 2 in Finland
There is a growing interest in social responsibility among consumers, investors and NGOs just to name few, and now social responsibility is also taken seriously in many companies, for example the Finnish trading sector company Kesko.
The company has announced that their actions to achieve the goals on a global scale are:- A fair compensation of work.- Kesko and Fairtrade Finland have signed an agreement which has as an aim to offer a bigger variety of fair trade products to the customers and in this way increase the well being of the Fairtrade farmers.
On a local scale the actions are:- Of all the K-food stores 90% donate food to local charity.- The private label K-Menu offers affordable and high quality staple foods.- Ab experimental farm at Hauho does research work for promoting sustainable cultivation methods and to develop local food production.- Participation in different efforts to promote local origin and to increase domestic food production. Kesko
Quiz created by Markus Kemppainen with GoConqr
https://www.ifad.org/documents/10180/eb7ee96e-9d18-4966-929c-2807c91ba83a